Meet Saros – your latest must-play PS5 title, plus Magic: The Gathering – Secrets of Strixhaven and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream.

With Returnal, Finish studio Housemaruque proved it was ready to move on from its humble beginnings to the big leagues, with a third-person action game that was bold, confident and additive as hell. Now the studio is returning to the well with Saros – a spiritual sequel of sorts that wants to go bigger, better and braver than ever before.

The good news is that Saros pretty well knocks it out of the park from the game’s opening moments. To haunting internal voices to striking orange-hued landscapes it’s an atmospheric debut that does well to draw you in.

Things kick off on the planet of Carcosa, where you find Arjun Devraj – a Soltari enforcer who is called upon once a number of previous groups have gone quiet. A world-changing eclipse later and you’re quickly sucked into the chaos and forced to survive. Much like Returnal before it, Saros’ narrative is never your main driver, but it is a more engaging tale that is certainly easier to follow than its predecessor. It’s also backed up by a decent cast of additional characters to enhance the journey. It’s Rahul Kohli’s show though, and he does an excellent job of bringing Arjun to life amongst the terror.

Still, it’s the action of Saros that truly sings, and anybody who enjoyed Returnal is going to be positively delighted here. Movement is incredibly fluid as you once again are forced to contend with an ever-present barrage of projectiles.

Learning patterns and timings will often be the key to your success, as will a steady upgrade of weapons and a ludicrously large upgrade tree, but this time you are helped along by a nifty shield that is capable of absorbing blue bullets and then redistributing them into your firepower. The caveat here is you’ll need to perform a melee strike before the shield appears, making the timing feel a bit unnatural and may lead you to just try and dodge every projectile entirely rather than potential die trying to utilise your new tools. It’s a minor quibble in what is otherwise a masterclass display of action.

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Saros is also a positively gorgeous game, even if you’re playing on a standard PS5 model. Each biome feels distinctly different and helps break up your runs (of which there will be many) and once they’re filled with a flurry of colourful projectiles it transforms into a whole other spectacle. It’s truly impressive how much action Housemarque can jam into a screen with little to zero slowdown.

Whether you’ve experienced Returnal or not, Saros is a game that deserves to be played by all PS5 owners. It’s fast, furious and absolutely worth your time.

Saros is out now on PS5.

Also out now…

Magic: The Gathering – Secrets of Strixhaven

Magic the Gathering is about to hit brand new mainstream heights when it releases its Marvel line-up in a few months, but before the Avengers assemble, longtime fans have a bit of time to experience the more traditional release: Secrets of Strixhaven.

For those relatively new to the Magic fold, Strixhaven takes more than a few cues from a certain boy wizard – itself a magical school of mages. There are five colleges to get amongst: Silverquil, Lorehold, Prismari, Witherbloom, Quandrix — each with its own dual-colour setup. It’s also a nice touch that each colour combo ties into particular ‘subject matter’ like maths or literature – Wizards of the Coast clearly doing well to play into the overall themes of the set itself.

It’s also a fun playground for Magic to play in and marks a return to the hallowed halls since it originally debuted back in 2021 (which quickly proved to be a fan favourite). Much of that stems from the flexibility the different colleges present, and although the cards we were able to get hands on with were more limited this time around, it still offers the opportunity to come to grips with some of Secrets of Strixhavens gameplay tweaks.

Prepared spells are a prime example of this. Stumble upon a card featuring the trait and you’ll have the opportunity to become ‘prepared’, meaning it will instantly cast a copy of the spell listed on the card itself. Some cards will enter prepared whereas others have pre-set conditions to trigger the status, both options adding strategic layers to gameplay, especially considering that once triggered the card moves back to an ‘unprepared’ state.

What you should be prepared for is another round of fun and fantastical art, and seeing how the game’s art team has tackled the schoolyard-like theme has been a highlight of the last few releases.

Yes, Secrets of Strixhaven is another strong outing for Magic: The Gathering and is bound to entertain fans before a new legion forms in the next few months…

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (Switch)

Of Nintendo’s entire catalogue, there is little doubt that the Tomodachi series is its most polarizing. Focused on building a collection of Miis, assigning them a semblance of personality and then sitting back to watch how they interact with one another is certainly a quirky pitch, and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is certainly no different. Yet somehow, despite the sheer oddity of it all, the game has a hell of a lot of charm behind it that makes it easy to recommend.

Much of the game Living the Dream relies on your creativity. You decide your cast of Miis, their personalities, their interests and their desires. Once that’s all set up you’ll largely sit back and watch many of the shenanigans that follow. You can still add more infrastructure to your world, play the odd minigame and work to keep your Miis happy (via food or friendships, for example) but largely you’ll want to see how things play out via a range of cutscenes. You might stumble upon a blossoming romance, a brutal heartbreak or anything in between. You never know exactly what you’re going to get in each vignette but there’s a good chance it’ll make you smile. There’s also a ludicrous text-to-voice dialogue system that seems lazy from the sidelines, but in reality is a genius choice that cleverly amplifies much of the game’s awkward comedy.

Some of the game’s charm does get lost once some of the cutscenes inevitable start to repeat themselves, and it’s a damn shame that Nintendo has blocked being able to widely and easily share your in-game antics, but neither should prevent you from indulging in one of the company’s most unconventional and off kilter games in its library.

Mouse: P.I. for Hire (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, PC)

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something like Mouse: P.I. for Hire comes along and blasts away your expectations within its opening minutes. A large part of that is thanks to Mouse’s absolutely striking art style – embracing the beloved black and white rubber hose animation style of the 1920s and 30s. Combined with a jazzy soundtrack and detective noir story, the game oozes style as it tells its tale of Jack Pepper as he takes on a missing persons case that quickly spirals out of control.

But by leaning into a boomer shooter design philosophy, that means Mouse P.I. is actually less concerned about tracking down clues and solving mysteries but the firefights that result from it.

These encounters are frequent and frantic, with boss battles being a particular highlight as you work to strategically dance around foes, focus on taking out weak points or utilising special strategies to walk out victorious.

But fun as the combat is, a greater focus on actually solving the crime would have been nice to help break up the game’s pace and slight repetition that can occur after tackling the umpteenth wave of enemies.

Still, the style and humour Mouse: P.I. exudes makes it a treat for anybody looking for an excuse to pick up a tommy gun.

Replaced (Xbox Series X/S, PC)

Calling all cyberpunk fans, because Replaced might just be a game worth looking into. It all starts with scientist Warren Marsh who finds himself implanted with Reach – an AI with a mind of its own. Most interestingly though, it’s Reach you actually control in Replaced – the human body just a shell to fulfill your bidding. It’s an incredibly interesting concept that inevitably leads to the duo working to expose a shady corporation while also working to break apart from one another once more.

Replaced’s world feels particularly poignant at the moment, and it’s presented in truly breathtaking fashion with a stunning 16-bit-styled atheistic that bounces off the screen. Combat is also highly enjoyable, borrowing largely from the Batman: Arkham series as you work to dodge and counter attacks while simultaneously bouncing between enemies. It works impressively well on a 2D scale and is impressively fluid throughout.

Platforming sections might be a bit more hit and miss for some, but the slower pace does allow for more exploration and helps break up some of the action. Replaced has had quite a lengthy development cycle, but it seems as though the hard work has paid off, because this is an indie gem worth looking into.